


To Love Shadows and Marvels

by midwinterspring



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Academic entrepreneurship, Alternate Universe - Academia, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Lovecraft Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Amilyn Holdo/Mon Mothma, Bisexual Ben Solo, Bisexual Rey (Star Wars), Brief mentions of animal research, Coworker Romance, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Gothic, Grad Student!Ben, Grad Student!Rey, Lovecraftian Elements, Maker culture, Mentions of family estrangement, No Pregnancy, PhD life, Problems with financial aid, Safe to Read if You're Triggered by Pregnancy, Slow Burn, Startup life, Terrible PhD advisor, adoption mentions, eldritch magic, foster system mentions, mentions of parent death, psychic meet-cute, secret psychics, victorian occultism, victorian spiritualism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:34:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23674711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midwinterspring/pseuds/midwinterspring
Summary: Rey looked at the envelope. It was thick, heavy paper, and reminded her of a wedding invitation. Her address was written in calligraphy, in dark blue ink. The return address only said “Exegol House”.A modern startup AU with Lovecraftian elements.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 30
Kudos: 31
Collections: Queerly Beloved Reylo Fics, Reylo Hidden Gems





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Hannidae for betaing this chapter and to QueenofCarrotFlowers for brainstorming and helpful feedback!

May 2019

Cambridge, Massachusetts

“Look at what I have!” said Rey, walking into the apartment in Edgerton House with a big box in her hands. Like many buildings on MIT's campus and the nearby neighborhood of Kendall Square, the grad student apartment building was a converted warehouse. She could see a magnetic resonance lab and the nuclear reactor building from the dining room window. She liked feeling like she was in the middle of so much research and discovery and the infrastructure that made it possible.

She set the box down on the dining room table, already partially covered with in-progress projects. “Maker Works was cleaning out the student project storage and I got some goodies for us.” Maker Works was one of many makerspaces on MIT's campus – spaces where students and faculty could tinker and create projects with tools like laser cutters, 3D printers, and sewing machines.

“Ooh, let me see!” said Rose.

Rey held out some pieces of aluminum and a couple of motors. “That's what – 3/8 of a 3D printer?”

“Definitely 3/8 more than what I had before,” said Rose. “I'll take it.” Like Rey, Rose was in graduate school for mechanical engineering.

“Any drone parts?” asked Poe, from the kitchen. It was his turn on dinner. Rey wasn't surprised at the question - he was in aeronautical/astronautical engineering and could sometimes be single minded about things that flew.

“Anything is a drone part if you throw it hard enough,” said Finn, putting dishes away next to Poe.

“Not too many, Poe. Sorry. I did find a motor with a propeller on it, and some balsa wood. Plus some model rocket engines.”

“Thanks!” said Poe.

“I have...some questions,” said Finn. “About what people leave around there and what they let you take.”

“The staff like me,” said Rey. And they really needed to clean out their storage space.” Any space where people made projects tended to run out of space. Rey hoped they wouldn't run into the same problem in the apartment anytime soon.

“Anything for me?” asked Finn.

“Some random microcontrollers, soldering iron tips, and some sensors. Oh, also some LEDS.”

“Not bad,” said Finn. He was in electrical engineering and always had several projects going on at once. Then again, they all did, whether for school or otherwise.

“What did you find for yourself?” asked Rose.

“A mini linear actuator!” she said, holding up the small cylinder. “Pretty sure I've seen one of these online for $150. Might be cool on a camera slider for documenting projects.”

“Nice,” said Rose. She frowned. “I almost forgot – I picked up your mail from the MechE building.”

“Oh thanks,” said Rey. “I always forget.”

“People send mail anymore?” asked Poe.

“Apparently!” said Rey, looking at the envelope. It was thick, heavy paper, and reminded her of a wedding invitation. Her address was written in calligraphy, in dark blue ink. The return address only said “Exegol House”.

“Anyone heard of Exegol House?” she asked.

“That's not one of the other grad residences, is it?” asked Finn.

“I don't think so,” she said. “Can't imagine they have their own in-house calligrapher, even if they are in Kendall Square.”

“Pretty sure it would be generated by algorithm if they did,” said Rose.

Rey grinned. She loved her apartmentmates. They were all grad students here on fellowships, like her. They had met up during their first year and decided to get an apartment together before their second year started. Navigating an institution like MIT was much better with them around.

“Welp, hope it's not anthrax,” she said, and opened the letter. She read it and sat down hard on the sofa.

*

She went into her room and dialed home frantically. Amilyn picked up on the third ring. “Hi Rey,” she said. “Always good to hear from you!”

“Hi, Mom,” she said, trying to sound calm.

“What's up? Is everything okay?”

She could never hide much from either of her moms. It was fine.

“Do I...have a...grandfather in Arkham?”

“What?” asked Amilyn, sounding genuinely shocked.

She could hear Mon in the background, “What is it?” The sound of the call changed as Amilyn switched to speakerphone.

“We've told you everything we knew,” said Amilyn. “You know this. You have access to all the records there are.”

“I know. I believe you,” said Rey. “I just got this letter, from someone named Sheev Palpatine. He said he was my birth dad's father.”

“They looked for your relatives, Rey,” said Amilyn. “There was no one nearby. There was no one who could take you.”

“I know,” said Rey. She hated having to talk about this again. She barely remembered her birth parents. They had both died in a car accident when she was three. She had been in a carseat in the backseat, and had somehow survived.

“I know my dad was estranged from his family, but I thought they were in California. And that their last name was Johnson.”

“So did we, honey. He must have changed his name, probably when he stopped talking to them.”

After her parents' death, Rey had gone into the foster system. She knew she had it better than so many others. Her first foster parents were only licensed for younger kids, so she had to go to another home when she was too old. Amilyn and Mon wanted to adopt an older kid. She had been with them since she was 10.

“He wants me to come visit him in Arkham.”

“You don't have to do anything, Rey,” said Mon, fiercely. “Not if you don't want to.”

“I know,” said Rey.

“We can try to find more information for you, honey. If that's what you want,” said Amilyn.

“Sure. More information would be good.” _So I can know exactly how much of an asshole this guy is_.

“We love you,” said Mon. Rey could just imagine the two of them in the apartment in Queens, Mon leaning over Amy's shoulder as she held the phone.

“I love you both too,” she said.

*

“Dinner is ready! Fettuccine Alfredo with chicken and broccoli!,” said Poe from the kitchen as soon as Rey left her room.

“And we're here if you want to talk about it. Whatever it is. You looked really upset,” said Rose.

“Here, read it if you want,” said Rey, tired of touching the letter. She wanted to wash her hands, even if that didn't make sense. “You all can take a look.”

Rose read the letter. “Your grandfather...I mean, your birth dad's father...”

“My birth dad's estranged father, who couldn't be bothered to give a shit twenty years ago, when it could have _mattered_...”

“Wants to talk to you,” continued Rose.

“Wants me to come visit him. In Arkham. Yes.”

“I see he skipped the algorithmic calligraphy for the letter,” said Rose. It was just the sort of odd detail she noticed. It was a surreal enough comment that Rey took another look at the letter, and a look at the envelope she was still holding.

 _Not written by the same person._ She still didn't want to touch the letter again, but she felt a tiny nudge at the back of her mind when she looked at the envelope. Not dangerous, just strange.

“And he knows our lab's address,” said Rose.

“We're in academia. Unfortunately, we're not that hard to find.” They both had bios on their respective labs' webpages – Rose in the Biomimetic Robotics Lab, and Rey in Professor Luke Organa's Biomechatronics Lab.

“Oh goody, he sent an email address,” said Rose.

“In his super weird letter, yes.” Rey grabbed a plate and put some pasta on it. “Look, can we talk about something else now?”

“Sure! I think I fixed BB-8,” said Finn, pointing to their Roomba on its charging station. “I kind of want to give him some accessories, though.”

“Ooh, what about a lighter?” asked Poe.

“I'm going to go with....no?” said Finn.

Rey laughed and sat down on the couch, watching her apartmentmates. _This is my life. This is my life. This. Here. And with Amilyn and Mon._

She threw the envelope and letter in the recycling bin.

_*_

She tried not to think about her grandfather over the next week. It didn't work. She felt annoyed, but she also felt curious. She was an engineer. She wanted to understand things, whether those things were machines, the human muscular system, or the dynamics of her birth family. Her dad's side had been an utter unknown for so long. She realized she didn't want to pass up the chance to learn more.

She group texted Amilyn and Mon. _Any more info on Prof. P? How's the new job?_ Amilyn had just started at the Brooklyn Navy Yard as their Senior VP of Programming and Partnerships. She texted back, _We have more information, if you want it. Would love to chat either way. Love you!_

Rey called her immediately.

“So, first things first, how's the Navy Yard?” asked Rey.

“Oh, it's great so far. Just the tour took half my first day, and my schedule has been full of meetings since then so I can meet the key stakeholders,” said Amilyn. “Everyone's excited to hear my new programming ideas. We're going to do some multi-building art shows and a manufacturing showcase to start with, I think.”

“That's great!” said Rey. “And how's Mon? Completely buried under Pride planning?”

She was on speakerphone. “I'm good. It's busier than it's ever been at The Center” said Mon. “With the commemoration of 50 years since Stonewall...we're expecting record crowds. And the work goes on. You know it's not all rainbow floats.”

“I know,” said Rey.

“That being said, if your friends want to come hang out with a million of our closest friends, they would be welcome,” said Mon. “We can pull out some air mattresses, even.”

“That would be fun,” said Rey. “Hey, uh, not to bring up some unwelcome heteronormativity, but...”

“Sheev Palpatine?” asked Amilyn.

“Exactly. You said you found information.”

“Yeah, we did,” said Mon.

“I want to know. I just want to understand if I can.”

“I don't know if this will help, but yes, from everything we can tell, he really is your grandfather. He moved to Arkham about 12 years ago to take the faculty position at Miskatonic. Before then, he was at Stanford. Your birth dad changed his last name to Johnson some time before you were born, and that's almost certainly the point he cut off all contact with his parents,” said Mon.

“Any idea why?”

“Can't find any indication from anything online, but that doesn't mean anything. Plenty of people can be terrible without it showing up in public records.”

“Any information on my grandmother?”

“Not a lot. Her name was Arlene. She died a couple of years ago. Your dad was an only child,” said Amilyn.

“So, Sheev is the only source of info.”

“If you want to talk to someone, looks like it.”

*

Rey decided to do some of her own searching. _He's in academia. He's not that hard to find._ She found his lab's page on Miskatonic's website. He was in the Neuroscience department, and seemed mostly to be working on the nervous systems of octopuses. There was a list of his papers. Nothing about any grad students or postdocs in his lab, which might have been odd but also might not be. It really depended on the institution and the professor.

Also, some of his research was being spun out into a startup, which was early stage but had already received an impressive amount of funding. And he was giving a public lecture in Arkham a week from Friday. On a day when she and Rose were already planning to visit Salem. She looked it up – there was just a fifteen minute drive between the towns. There was even a train line, if Rose wasn't up for coming with.

Reaching out was probably a terrible idea, but she wanted to know. She found his email and started typing a message.

*

A week and a half later, Rose and Rey drove up to Arkham. Her grandfather had responded quickly and said that he had invited his startup team over for dinner after the lecture, and she was welcome to join as well. Rey thought it seemed like a good idea and maybe less awkward to meet him in a group. Rose was willing to come along. She had reached out to one of her contacts and would be touring Miskatonic University's new library makerspace. Rey was curious to hear about what a makerspace in a school known for the humanities would be like. As far as she knew, Miskatonic had no engineering program.

They stopped in Salem for lunch and coffee at Jaho, where they had gone the last time they did a day trip in Salem, then wandered around looking at stores. Rose wanted to check out a store called Salemdipity, full of witchy and Halloween kitsch. When they were done there, Rey felt drawn to a nearby store called Nu Aeon. She looked through the candles and bought a book about the history of the region, and another one about Spiritualism in New England at the turn of the 20th century.

They must have looked like tourists, because the young man behind the counter asked, “How long are you in Salem for?”

“Oh, just doing a day trip,” said Rose. “We're heading to Arkham next.”

“Hmmm,” said the man, looking at both of them. He pulled out a bowl of black stones from behind the counter. “Here. We're doing a free gift with purchase today. These are black tourmaline. Could be useful for protection. Or you know, they're pretty rocks.” He smiled wryly.

Rey picked out one, and so did Rose. They were rough crystals, and hers had one side terminated, looking like a flattened three-sided pyramid. She put it in her pocket, and it felt surprisingly comforting.

They drove on to Arkham.

*

For as long as she could remember, Rey had been sensitive to places. When she visited the desert on her first vacation with her moms, she cried and didn't know why. To her, MIT's campus was complex systems and endless corridors but in a quiet location by the river. Across Main Street, Kendall Square echoed with the sounds of a thousand coffee-fueled startup pitches and even more complex systems mingling and seeping into every square foot of the pavement. Salem's history had bled into its sidewalk, and the occult store on every corner promised mysticism and mystery. There were mysteries there – she had sensed them, even if it wasn't always in the spots the tourist maps pointed out.

Arkham was something else entirely. It was calm, in the way of something isolated from noise and time. The Miskatonic University campus was even stranger, like stepping into semi-solid amber. It was beautiful in a red-brick Massachusetts way, like they were trying to out-Harvard Harvard. Wide manicured green lawns stretched out between buildings, and there were neat gardens throughout full of roses and irises and vibrant foliage. She also found it incredibly disquieting, and she didn't know why.

Now that she was here, she wanted to stay for as little time as possible. But she and Rose had come here on a mission, so they found the building where the lecture was happening. They walked up the wide stairs to the entrance, and found the correct wood-paneled lecture hall.

They sat near the back, watching the crowd. Rey guessed that half the crowd was undergrads, probably here because of an assignment. There were a good number of people she would have identified as grad students and postdocs, too, and probably plenty of members of the general public. All in all, she guessed that there were a hundred people there, which was a healthy amount of interest in octopuses.

Her grandfather proved to be an engaging speaker. Rey wasn't sure what she had expected. He was clearly very passionate about his subject. He talked about the unique nervous system of octopuses, which had a central nervous system and clusters of neurons that functioned as “mini-brains” for each arm. He talked about the immense amount of data that octopuses and other cephalopods like cuttlefish processed to change their color and texture for camouflage and communication. He wrapped up his talk with a discussion of the research that was being spun out into his startup Octolynk Neuro, which was using the nervous system of octopuses as the inspiration for brain-controlled prostheses.

Rose and Rey filed out of the lecture hall with the other attendees. They paused outside, waiting until they saw her grandfather and several men in suits or blazers leave the lecture hall. She guessed they were the startup team he had mentioned. She didn't want to talk to him yet, not here in front of the admiring people who had been asking questions post-lecture.

Rey texted Rose an address. “This is his house. I'll call you when I'm done. If you don't hear back from me in three hours, call the police. Don't go to the house.”

Rose looked a little startled but nodded. “You sure you're going to be okay? I can see about postponing my tour if you need backup.”

“I'll be fine,” said Rey. “But thank you.”

*

Rey pulled up the map on her phone. She walked through campus and out into a quiet neighborhood with larger houses. Prof. Palpatine's house was only a few blocks from campus.

Before she wanted to be an engineer, Rey had wanted to be an architect. She still tended to notice the architectural styles and details of the buildings around her. There were a number of colonial and Georgian houses in the neighborhood, which was to be expected in this part of Massachusetts. Palpatine's house had a shingled gambrel roof, like a number of the other nearby houses. The light-yellow clapboard siding was covered in ivy, looking a bit like green tentacles. _Am I letting my imagination run away from me?_ But no. These kinds of impressions were part of how she understood places, and they had rarely led her astray. She would listen.

It had a wrought iron fence around a yard that was moderately-sized for the neighborhood, but still stood out to Rey after spending so much time in dense cities. The gateposts surrounding the driveway were brick and their bottom halves were covered with ivy. The left post carried a brass plaque that said “Exegol House.” _This is...rather over the top._ The driveway gates were closed, but there was a smaller pedestrian gate set in a little archway, and it was open.

She walked through, feeling like she was stepping further into a Gothic novel. She rang the doorbell.

Palpatine himself answered the door. “Hello, Rey,” he said. Right, he must have seen her photo on the lab's website. His face was very wrinkled. She knew he was 63, and he looked considerably older than that. But his eyes were very alive, and an odd light brown that looked almost yellow. She had never seen eyes like those. _There's a trait I didn't inherit, I guess._

“Hello,” she said. What did one even say in these situations? What did she call him? What did she _want_ to call him?

“Welcome to my home,” he said. He was very formal, and there was no warmth in his expression as he shook her hand. She tried to keep herself from wiping it off on her pants as she went inside.

There was an entrance hall with a staircase, and to the right was a formal dining room with dark red walls and white molding. She heard music playing from somewhere, softly. It sounded like chanting or maybe opera. She hadn't heard anything quite like it before. There were three other men sitting at the table, and empty seats at the head and the foot. She recognized the men from the lecture.

“This is my granddaughter, Rey,” he said. The sheer presumptuousness of him acknowledging to these men what he had never bothered to acknowledge to her before two weeks ago took her breath away. She tried to keep her expression steady.

To distract herself from her growing rage, she looked at the other people in the room. The man closest to her caught her eye first. Really, he had caught her eye in the lecture hall, if she was being honest with herself. He had wavy black hair long enough to cover his ears, and dark eyes. When he stood up to shake her hand, she realized he was even taller than she first had thought. He wore a black blazer with a black t-shirt and jeans. Rey had recently reread Frankenstein, and one of Mary Shelley's lines came to mind when she saw him, “the pale student of unhallowed arts.” Which was ridiculous – but, if there were any “hallowed arts” in science these days, neuroscience was definitely one of them.

“This is my grad student and our project manager at Octolynk, Ben Organa-Solo,” Palpatine said.  
“Organa?” asked Rey. “Like Luke Organa at MIT?”

“Yes – my uncle,” said Ben. “Most people ask if it's like Senator Organa. She 's my mom.”

Rey had only been in Massachusetts for a year, and still tended to follow New York's politics more closely. Now that she thought about it though, she did remember Luke briefly mentioning his sister was a US senator.

“Cool! Luke's my advisor.” She reached out her hand to shake Ben's. “Hi, I'm Rey Holdo-Mothma,” she said. Their hands touched. There was a rushing sound, and all other sound drained out of the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on Twitter as @midwintersprin1 . Come say hi!
> 
> The title is a reference to a line in H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Thing on the Doorstep".
> 
> Most of the locations mentioned are real or based on real places.
> 
> New York  
> [The Brooklyn Navy Yard](https://brooklynnavyyard.org/) (Amilyn's role doesn't exist, but it's similar to SVP, External Relations)  
> [The Center](https://gaycenter.org/)  
> [Stonewall 50 - WorldPride NYC 2019](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_50_%E2%80%93_WorldPride_NYC_2019)
> 
> Cambridge  
> [Kendall Square](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendall_Square)  
> [Edgerton House](http://eh.mit.edu/) I played a bit fast and loose with housing policies  
> [MIT MakerWorkshop](https://makerworkshop.mit.edu/)  
> [MIT/Harvard Center for Magnetic Resonance](http://web.mit.edu/fbml/index.shtml)  
> [MIT Nuclear Reactor Laboratory](https://nrl.mit.edu/)  
> [Biomechatronics Lab](https://biomech.media.mit.edu/)  
> [Biomimetic Robotics Lab](http://biomimetics.mit.edu/)
> 
> Salem  
> [Jaho](https://www.jaho.com/pages/salem-jaho)  
> [Salemdipity](https://www.salem.org/listing/salemdipity/)  
> [Nu Aeon](https://nuaeon.com/)  
> [Black Tourmaline, aka Schorl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourmaline#Schorl)
> 
> Arkham/Lovecraft  
> [Arkham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkham) I'm using the map on this page which places Arkham where Wenham, MA is in reality.  
> [Miskatonic University](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miskatonic_University)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The only thing Rey could hear was Ben's voice. “Hello, good to meet you.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to @TristenCrone for the beta and to QueenofCarrotFlowers for feedback and being a cheerleader for this fic!
> 
> Thank you to everyone who left comments and kudos so far!

The only thing Rey could hear was Ben's voice. “Hello, good to meet you.” Ben's eyes held hers, although the rest of his face showed no expression. An image flashed in her mind for the briefest moment – elegant letters in midnight blue ink, on the back of an envelope. She wanted to ask about that, but not here. Not now.

The handshake ended. Sound flooded back into the world as soon as they were no longer touching. She hoped her face hadn't shown any surprise.

“More than one family connection here, it seems,” said Palpatine. Was it just her, or did he sound even more smug? “There are many distinguished people in Ben's family.” Ben was still facing her, and she could see his eye twitch at that.

The other two men at the table had also stood up. Palpatine continued the introductions, and Rey tried to focus. Her annoyance with him was helpful for that, at least. “This is Armitage Hux, one of my postdocs, and also our Chief Operating Officer,” her said. Armitage nodded when they shook hands, but didn't say anything otherwise. He looked very put together, and his posture was perfectly straight. If someone had told her that he had spent some time in the military, she wouldn't have been surprised.

Palpatine continued, “And I'm very happy to say that Andrew Snoke has just joined Octolynk as our CEO. I'll have more time to focus on my research now and will continue as the Principal Investigator and scientific lead. Andrew was one of my students at Stanford, and had a couple of successful startups in Silicon Valley. The last one was sold for quite a lot last year.”

Andrew had a shaved head and looked very pleased with himself. “Algorithm-powered advertising is valuable, as it turns out. Still, I'm glad to be back working with my old mentor. You could say he made me.” Rey didn't know a lot about men's fashion, but she was pretty sure his suit was expensive, and his gold watch had to be. _Wow – this is a really white and male startup team._ More and more startups she knew about were making at least a small effort to change that – clearly not here.

Each member of the startup team gave her a business card. She noticed that Ben was careful not to touch her when he handed her the card.

Her grandfather sat at one end of the table, and the only open seat was across from him. Of course. Andrew was on his right, and Armitage and Ben on his left.

“I got catering from 15 Walnut Bistro, just down the street,” Palpatine said. There were foil-covered trays on a side table, and something smelled delicious and savory. Rey realized that he had never asked her food preferences.

At least she could eat all the food, after all. There was salad with goat cheese and walnuts, crab cakes, pork tenderloin, and roast chicken. There was wine too, and that was _not happening_ tonight.

The crab cakes turned out to be delicious, which wasn't a surprise in this part of the country. Anywhere else, with pretty much anyone else, she would have devoured them enthusiastically. Instead, she ate slowly and watched the others at the table. The odd music continued softly in the background.

“So, how long have you known my uncle?” asked Ben, after a few seconds of awkward silence.

“A bit over a year,” said Rey. “His lab was definitely part of why I wanted to do grad school at MIT.”

“Where did you do undergrad?” asked Armitage.

“NYU Tandon,” said Rey. “Though it was called Polytechnic when I started.” She couldn't tell if Armitage's sneer was for her alma mater, or if it was his default expression. She decided she really didn't care. “I did biomedical engineering there, although what I want to work on falls under mechanical at MIT.”

“What do you want to work on?” asked Ben.

“Definitely prosthetics, or maybe exoskeletons. Something to help with mobility or rehabilitation. I'm considering both startups and industry at this point.”

Of all of them, she minded talking to Ben the least. She really didn't want to feel like she was doing a panel interview though. “So, speaking of startups – tell me more about yours.”

Rey really wasn't surprised when Palpatine was the one who answered, instead of Ben. “Two-thirds of an octopus's neurons are located in its arms, giving rise to complex reflexes and an excellent sense of touch. Octolynk Neuro is working on devices that will add reflexes and the sense of touch to prostheses, and that can be implanted in a patient's limb, rather than in the brain in a lengthy and risky surgery. It's a platform technology that may also have applications for spinal cord injuries and paralysis.”

“We've raised $15 million in our series A round,” said Andrew. “And had some impressive individuals join the board, from medicine, finance, and defense.”

“Defense?” asked Rey.

“From my father's network,” said Armitage. “Octolynk's technology has several applications that interest the military.

“Brendol Hux is the President and COO at Bechtel,” said Andrew. “And one of Miskatonic's trustees.”

He was so smug. They _all_ were...except for Ben, Rey realized. Throughout the conversation, he had been watching Palpatine, his mouth a tight line. He seemed so tense around his advisor. It made sense though – he could stand in the way of Ben getting his PhD.

The rest of the meal was just as strained. Palpatine didn't ask her many questions about herself, and her family didn't come up at all. She heard a bit more about octopi from Ben, and lots about what Andrew thought about neural networks and AI. She heard about the team's optimism for raising their next round of funding. By the end of it, she was wondering why Palpatine had wanted her to visit. So he could have another person to show off to? So he could show her off? Nothing seemed to make sense.

*

She called Rose as soon as she was off Palpatine's property. It had only been an hour and a half since she she had walked to the house from campus, but it seemed like much longer. “Hi Rose! Dinner is done,” she said. “I'm fine. I don't want to rush you though if the tour isn't finished.”

“We're about done here too,” said Rose. “Meet me outside of the library.”

Rey felt even stranger stepping back onto Miskatonic's campus. After the day she had, she would have expected to feel numb. The library, like the building that had hosted the lecture, was another imposing red brick building with big wooden doors and a facade covered in ivy.

Rose walked out shortly after Rey arrived. “How are you doing?” she asked.

“I'm...fine, I guess,” said Rey. “Let's chat in the car, or over dessert.”

“Ooh, dessert! Want to try to find something around here, or do Jaho again?”

“Definitely Jaho.” Arkham seemed to be a smaller town with fewer restaurants than Salem, even near Miskatonic's campus. More than that, she just wanted to be away from this place as soon as possible.

Rose didn't ask too many questions on their drive back to Salem, and Rey was grateful. They got iced green teas and desserts (tiramisu for Rose, and Boston cream pie for Rey) and settled into chairs at one of the outdoor tables. The sun would still be up for another hour or so, and there was a bit of a breeze from the harbor. Rey felt her shoulders come down from around her ears.

“So...” said Rose. “How did it go? Or do you want to hear about the makerspace first?”

“The makerspace, please.” Talking about making and building things generally calmed her down.

“Yeah, okay. Tishra gave me a great tour of the Special Collections workshops as well as the makerspace.”

“I know they've got a great collection of rare books.” Rey had looked up some information on Miskatonic before this visit, and that seemed to be the second fact that came up, after the elite status of the university.

“They do, apparently. I didn't get to see any of them, but I saw one of the labs where they worked on conservation of the books. The makerspace itself has a room for the book arts as well as sewing. All the stuff you don't want to get dirty.”

“Who uses the space?” asked Rey.

“Seems like the whole campus. There are open hours, and there are also specific classes that use it. It looked like there was a theater class making set designs, and a History of Astronomy class laser cutting astrolabes.”

“That's cool.”

“It really was. The laser cutters and 3D printers were in a separate room from the book arts room. They were really well ventilated too. Didn't smell at all.”

Rey laughed. “That's the sign of people who are in these spaces all the time. Not, 'oooh, a laser cutter' but 'how is your fume extraction'?”

“So true,” said Rose. “It really was a neat space. It was...kinda weird too, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“Something about the whole building felt...strange, especially by Special Collections. And some of the 3D prints...I mean 3D printing lets you do some odd geometries, but I've never seen anything like those...” Rose's voice trailed off, and her expression was disquieted.

“That sounds like something I would say,” said Rey.

“I know! Maybe I've been around you too long.”

“No, no. I believe you. The campus struck me as an odd place, too.”

“So, speaking of...” said Rose. “How did it go with the Professor?”

Rey grimaced. “He is pompous and presumptuous. Everything about his house felt _wrong_. He introduced me as his granddaughter, but nothing about my family came up the rest of the time. Just startup stuff.”

“How was the rest of the startup team?”

Rey ticked them off on her fingers. “Smarmy, sneering, and surprisingly okay. From brief conversations.”

“Who was surprisingly okay?”

“Luke's nephew, of all people. Ben.”

“Luke has a nephew at Miskatonic? I've never heard him mention him.” Rose frowned.

“Me either. Then again, Luke also doesn't exactly go around saying his twin sister is the junior senator from Massachusetts.”

“True that.”

Rey sipped her tea and took another bite of her Boston cream pie. It was so delicious. “It wasn't a great visit, but I'm okay. Now I know. Seriously, Rose, thanks for driving me on this fool's errand.”

“No problem! Tishra had invited me to visit the space here awhile ago, when we met at that maker education seminar last year.” Rose paused and smiled mischievously. “Although, if you still feel like you want to pay me back, you could keep me company while I fix 3D printers at the lab on Monday.”

“Sure!” said Rey.

*

On Monday, Rey went to the Biomimetic Robotics lab with Rose. “I can just be moral support, but I'm happy to pitch in too,” she said.

“Sure,” said Rose. They were sitting at one of the big tables in the middle of the room, which Rose had set several 3D printers on. She pointed to one of them. “This one's extruder has been making clicking noises and stopped printing. It's probably clogged.”

“I'll take a look,” she said. The printer was one of the common desktop kinds that took a string of plastic, heated it up, and squeezed it out to build up a shape layer by layer. It moved in 3 axes based on the code it was sent. She had once heard someone describe this kind of 3D printer as “a hot glue gun attached to an Etch-a-Sketch.”

She looked at the extruder where the plastic was squeezed out. That was usually what failed on these things. Before she heated it up to troubleshoot, she ran her left hand over its gears and motors, then over the cables that connected it to the electronics in its control box.

Something was wrong there, she just _knew_. She'd once replaced multiple expensive parts of another printer, only to find out that some simple wiring was the issue. “Rose, where do you keep the multimeters around here?” she asked.

Rose looked up from the printer she was disassembling. “That cabinet over there.” She pointed.

Rey grabbed a multimeter and probes from the cabinet, and looked at a machine on the table nearby. It was a computer numerically controlled router, a similar 3-axis frame to a 3D printer but used for carving material away.

It was a different model than what she had seen before. She gently put one hand on the frame while she looked at the combination of motors, belts, and leadscrews that moved the machine. Without thinking about it, she asked, “Hey, did this machine need to be fixed too? Seems like it's been shaking itself apart.”

Rose looked at her oddly. “Yeah, it does. I was going to mention it when we got done with the printers. Didn't realize it was that obvious.”

Rey shrugged. “I don't know. I noticed.”

She took the multimeter and checked the cables running from the extruder for continuity. Sure enough, one of the wires in the cable connected to the motor was broken. Maybe she wouldn't have to completely disassemble this thing, if she could wire a new cable.

 _How had she known?_ In the way that she had been sensitive to places all her life, Rey had also periodically gotten information from touching things for as long as she remembered. It was usually just a quiet instinct when it happened, and it had served her well in anything hands-on she did. (Even if sometimes it surprised people, like today.) Now, those instincts seemed sharper and louder.

 _Why now? When had this started?_ She was pretty sure she knew. In her minds eye, she saw Ben's face, his dark eyes meeting hers in utter silence.

She wasn't done. She wanted to be done with Sheev Palpatine, and Miskatonic, and Arkham itself. But she wasn't. Not with Palpatine's grad student at least. She needed to talk to him. She needed to say – what? How did one even start that conversation? She had, over long experience, learned to trust her instincts, recognizing it for the survival skill it was. But communicating those instincts to someone else? To a fellow grad student she had met at the world's most awkward dinner party, who was a politician's son no less? How was she going to manage that?

*

As it happened, she was saved from having to figure out an excuse for contacting Ben because he contacted _her_ the next morning. _Weird..._ Ben emailed her saying that he and Armitage would be in Kendall Square tomorrow for meetings, and did she want to get coffee? The tone of his email was professional, not flirtatious. She was available tomorrow morning. _Why not?_ she thought, and suggested Clover Food Lab. She was always up for an excuse to go there. If it was another uncomfortable conversation, at least the coffee was good, and it was a very public space.

They met up in the late morning the next day. Clover was on the first floor of the Google headquarters in Cambridge, but this time of day the space was less packed with Googlers in search of caffeination. Ben looked healthier and more alive here, which was a little surprising under the bright white LED lighting. She didn't move to shake hands, and neither did he. She wondered if that was a coincidence. They looked at the menu, posted on screens complete with estimates of how soon each item would be ready. Rey had read that the menu changed algorithmically throughout the day.

“The cold brew here is great,” said Rey, and ordered one for herself.

“My dad is obsessed with cold brew. He'd drink it by the bucket if he could, I think,” Ben said. “I prefer my Aeropress at home.” He ordered one of the single-origin pour-overs.

“The slowest thing on the menu,” Ben mused. “Not that I'm impatient.” As Rey watched him shift around as they waited for their coffee, she wondered if that was actually true.

“You mentioned your dad – what's he do?”

“He's done a bunch of things in financial tech. Most recent is a cryptocurrency exchange startup.”

“Cryptocurrency? Like Bitcoin?”

“Yeah. Before that he did high-frequency trading. He's always had good luck, somehow.” Ben quirked up one side of his mouth.

One wall of Clover was covered with living potted plants. It was Rey's favorite thing about the space, and she grabbed a table nearby after both their coffees were ready. Ben sat across from her, looking a bit too big for the stool and table.

“So you and Armitage have meetings here?” It made sense. Kendall Square was the epicenter of the biotech ecosystem in the US, and a major hub worldwide.

Ben winced. “ _Armitage_ does in fact have meetings here. I'm here to look at _real estate._ ” He made it sound like it was something distasteful.

Rey raised an eyebrow.

“Octolynk is going to be getting an office and lab space here,” he continued.

“That does make a lot of sense, for a biotech startup.”

“Sure,” said Ben. “But I should be planning our next set of experiments, not touring offices.”

“I can point out the best coffee shops, if that makes a difference.”

“Armitage just drinks tea. Really bitter tea, I found out once, when I grabbed his mug by mistake.”

Rey laughed. Ben actually smiled a little and shifted around in his seat.

“So, Rey, I-” he began, then stopped, his face becoming serious again. “Your grandfather asked me to meet with you today.”

Rey raised her eyebrow. “Why?”

“He – we- Octolynk Neuro needs a biomedical engineer. We've got a ways to go before we start the FDA approval process, but we'll be in much better shape if we have one as a team member from the beginning.”

“Okay,” said Rey. She thought she knew where this was going, but she wanted to hear him say it. “Congratulations. You're across the street from one of the top engineering schools in the world.”

Ben shook his head. “That's not it. Rey, we would like to hire you as our engineering lead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As with any of my works, please let me know if there's something I should have tagged and didn't!
> 
> Many thanks to my anonymous colleague who answered my PhD Life questions and advised on what roles a grad student and postdoc might have in a university startup.
> 
> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/midwintersprin1). Come say hi!
> 
> Why, yes, I did make some references (with permission) to Violet Wilson's brilliant "Star Wars Characters and how they make their coffee" [Twitter thread](https://twitter.com/ViWiWrites/status/1255149545245175811).
> 
> I meant to link to this [TED talk about octopuses](https://www.ted.com/talks/roger_hanlon_the_amazing_brains_and_morphing_skin_of_octopuses_and_other_cephalopods?language=en) in the last chapter. Palpatine's comments about the octopus's nervous system and sense of touch come from [this Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus#Nervous_system_and_senses).
> 
> Brown University has a [Department of Egyptology and Assyriology](https://www.brown.edu/academics/egyptology/about-department) which includes the History of the Ancient Exact Sciences (mathematics, astronomy, and astrology). I thought this was perfect for Miskatonic University, hence the class making the [astrolabes](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/astrolabe-original-smartphone-180961981/).
> 
> The description of a 3D printer as a "hot glue gun attached to an Etch-a-Sketch" comes from a staff member at the [Museum of Science and Industry's Fab Lab](https://www.msichicago.org/education/creativity-and-innovation/fab-lab/).
> 
> Other References:  
> [NYU Tandon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_University_Tandon_School_of_Engineering)  
> Tishra is [Tishra Kandia](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Tishra_Kandia)  
> [Startup Funding Rounds](https://blog.salesflare.com/startup-funding-rounds)  
> [Bechtel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechtel)  
> [15 Walnut](https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g41832-d2084887-Reviews-15_Walnut_Local_Bistro-South_Hamilton_Massachusetts.html)  
> [Ed Markey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Markey) is the real junior United States senator from Massachusetts.  
> [3D Printer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing)  
> [Computer Numerically Controlled Router](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNC_router)  
> [Laser Cutter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_cutting)  
> [Multimeter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimeter)  
> [Clover Food Lab](https://www.cloverfoodlab.com/)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Rey dreamt of a dark river, and murmuring coming from its depths. She woke up with a sense of unease and an image lingering in her mind: it was Ben looking the way he had when they had met, reaching for her hand._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to @TristenCrone for the beta and checking in on the story! Thank you to QueenofCarrotFlowers for brainstorming plot stuff for The Middle and for helpful comments!
> 
> Check out this amazing [moodboard](https://twitter.com/midwintersprin1/status/1278906834833858563) darthdarcyy made!
> 
> Also, I'm delighted that this fic was featured as a [Reylo Hidden Gem](https://twitter.com/reylo_gems/status/1279940234495614982)!

Rey had guessed what Ben was going to say, but it was still somehow surprising to hear it come from his lips. “You – Octolynk – want to hire me?”

He nodded. “We have funding. You would have a salary as well as equity. An engineering lead is our next key hire at this stage.”

That really was a good offer from a startup, to be paid as well as own part of the company. If it was bought or went public, she could stand to make a lot of money. Still, she could think of a few concerns about the offer. “Wouldn't this be nepotism?”

Ben shrugged. “Happens all the time. People found companies with their family or spouses, or use their family's networks.”

She could think of several snarky replies, but they were all assuming things about Ben's family that she didn't know were true. Instead she said, “Or suddenly reach out to their granddaughters and offer them jobs?”

“You are well qualified.”

“I haven't graduated yet.”

“Still. Your work in the Biomechatronics Lab so far has been excellent.”

Rey raised an eyebrow. “So. Do you have a pitch deck for me to look at?”

“No. The Professor prefers starting with a conversation.”

“Or having his grad student start with one, hmm?” From what she knew about startups, it was unusual that the most junior member of the team was attempting to recruit her. Truthfully, though, she was happy to be talking to Ben about this, rather than literally anyone else on the team.

Ben huffed out a little laugh. "You got me. I can email you the pitch deck though, if you'd like to see it. Or show it to you in person, I guess. I'll be back here next week."

"More real estate?"

"Yep. We're considering getting lab space here, too, and I can't get a tour at LabCentral until next Thursday."

Rey nodded. "Your job offer - I need time to think about it, honestly."

"Of course," said Ben. "Take your time. If you were interested, there would be a more formal discussion about compensation, probably with Snoke. In the meantime, do you have any questions? About Octolynk, or the team?"

She did, not all of which she was ready to ask yet. Still, it was the perfect opening. "I was curious...about your experiences with Palpatine. How long have you known him?"

"Since the summer before my senior year of high school. I did an internship in his lab. He was fairly new at Miskatonic, then." He leaned back a little, like this was a story he was used to telling.

"How did you know about him, then?"

"I didn't really, at the time. I knew I wanted to do some sort of life sciences, probably neuroscience. I just thought the brain was...interesting. My parents were—are—supportive, but they really didn't know the field. They hoped I'd go to either Harvard or Miskatonic though, and happened to see his research mentioned in a news article. An internship opportunity in a neuroscience lab seemed perfect. And the work really caught my attention. I was one of three interns that summer."

Rey sipped her cold brew. Delicious as ever. "What happened to the other two?"

"Tai and Voe both ended up at Harvard. Voe and I never got along-honestly, I was pretty insufferable then. Probably still am." He gave a little half-smile. "Tai and I were friends for a while, but lost touch." He took a cautious sip of his pourover.

"How is the coffee?" Rey asked.

"Worth the wait," Ben said.

"I figured," said Rey. "Then, did you go to Miskatonic for undergrad too?"

"Yeah," he said, drumming his long fingers on the coffee cup. "I did some work in Palpatine's lab too, and then knew I wanted to get my PhD here."

"Did you look at any other professors' work? Isn't that kind of unusual, to stay with one lab the whole time?"

"It is, but...he's now one of the top scientists in the field. His work has really been recognized in the past 10 years. I knew I wanted to work with him, and after my internship I knew I wanted to work with octopuses. The startup part wasn't something I had planned on, but I've come to enjoy it. It's exciting to see that research could be applied to the real world."

Rey nodded. "I see that. I mean, that's why I'm in engineering, and in my field." She thought of something. "Have you talked to Luke about this? I mean, that could be an interesting partnership." She knew of a couple of joint MIT-Harvard institutes. Sure, Miskatonic wasn't quite so close, but it wasn't impossibly far either.

"Not worried about nepotism anymore, huh?" asked Ben.

Rey shrugged. "Wouldn't have to be his lab specifically. Just... Miskatonic doesn't have engineering and we have a whole lot of it."

"Partnership questions are so far above my pay grade," said Ben. "But no, I don't know of Misktatonic having partnerships with any other institution. As for talking to Luke...I haven't in a while."

Rey thought she caught a grimace that he quickly covered up. "Any reason?" she asked, hoping he wouldn't think she was prying too much.

He shook his head. "No, not really. Just busy. Although, when I talked to him a while ago, he had some of the same concerns you had, about being in the same university and lab for undergrad and grad school."

Rey nodded and sipped her coffee, looking at the rows of succulents and other plants in pots next to them. "How's the new CEO? Snoke, was it?"

"Yeah, Andrew Snoke. He joined the team about a month ago, although I know Palpatine wanted to bring him on board sooner. I haven't seen a whole lot of him, really. I still report to Palpatine, technically, and would you if you came on board. So far Snoke reminds me a lot of him, honestly." Another shrug, and Ben sipped his coffee.

"Is that a good thing?"

Ben looked at her for a few seconds. "Honestly, time will tell."

They finished their coffees, and Ben had to go to his next appointment. "Text or email me where you want to meet up next week," he said.

"Sure," said Rey. She waved and watched him walk away, vanishing into the stream of people on the sidewalk.

*

Nearly a week later, Rey dreamt of a dark river, and murmuring coming from its depths. She woke up with a sense of unease and an image lingering in her mind: it was Ben looking the way he had when they had met, reaching for her hand.

She looked at her clock. Her alarm would be going off in twenty minutes, and she felt tense enough she knew it would take her a while to get back to sleep. Might as well just get up. She showered and got dressed. Jeans and boots today - she was scheduled to go and work in Luke's lab. She found the black tourmaline and put it in her pocket. It felt necessary again, somehow.

She was the first of her apartment mates in the kitchen, which was unusual. She started a pot of coffee. They just had a basic drip coffeemaker, but she had gotten some good beans and ground them fresh in Poe's burr grinder. She poured herself a cup, found some yogurt in the fridge, and carefully moved some 3D prints aside so she had room to eat on their dining room table.

Rey stared at the coffee like she could scry the future in its depths. Which, given everything that had been happening, was starting to sound like a reasonable plan. The dream felt significant - more than just her subconscious worrying. Or having a crush. Which wasn't the case, right?

She tried to remember if she had had any dreams about her last crush, Jessika from her Bio-Inspired Robotics class last fall. She didn't think so. It turned out that group projects tended to kill crushes, even group projects that went well.

Her feeling of unease continued as she walked to Luke's lab. She was glad to have the chance to distract herself a bit by working there, and it was also time for her to consider what direction she wanted to take in her own thesis work.

Luke was currently looking at soft robotics as a method of creating partial exoskeletons for mobility. He waved when she walked in the door. "So," he said without further preamble. "I did some user tests and the feedback is that the frame is soft enough, but it's too heavy. Kaydel and Wrobie went to the shop to machine some new parts and try to cut down weight there."

"I can look at the motors and see what options we have there."

"That's good," said Luke. "I'm attempting to order foam samples in sizes smaller than 'mattress.'" He frowned at his computer.

There was a partially disassembled exoskeleton on a table, and Rey took it upon herself to look at the motors in the knee and ankle joints. She looked up the specs for the motors in the project's documentation, then poked through the lab's bins of motors to see if there was something smaller that would suit. She sat back down with a few likely candidates.

"So, I met your nephew recently," said Rey, attempting sound casual.

"Oh? Ben? How did that happen?"

"Yeah. He's working for my grandfather. I visited him in Arkham recently. Their startup wants to hire me."

Luke raised an eyebrow. "Octolynk?"

"Yep. What's your impression of them, if you don't mind me asking?"

Luke could come across as a stereotypical grumpy old male engineer, but the truth was he was a fierce advocate for his students. Rey knew he would let her know if he had heard anything bad about the startup.

"Ben's a good kid," Luke said, with pride in his voice. "I haven't seen him in a bit, which is unfortunate. He got really busy with grad school, I think. As for Octolynk - they need a good engineer, honestly, to go with their science. I know some people in the prosthetics field who are excited about their work so far, but it's still really early." He looked at her. "They'd be lucky to get you. That doesn't mean you have to work for them, of course. They want you to start part time?"

"I think so. I mean, I didn't mention the work I need to do for my fellowship... if I really wanted to, I could probably cram some freelance hours in."

"I wouldn't want to see you burn out, but if you wanted to join the team, I would support it," said Luke. "You might even be able to write about it for your thesis."

"Thanks," said Rey. "I'm... honestly not sure. Just trying to get more info."

"You said Palpatine's your grandfather?"

"Yeah. It's... a long story. I just met him recently. Since you know a bit about Octolynk, what do you think about him?"

"My sister asked me to do some diligence when Ben was getting ready to intern with him, and then later when he was looking to join his lab as a grad student." Luke shrugged. "He's had some students come out of his lab and do very well, in both industry and academia. He's also had plenty of students simply quit. I guess that's a lot of professors, especially in the sciences..."

"But?" she pressed.

"But there are professors who are working to change that culture, let up on the pressure a little. From what I can tell, he hasn't. Not sure how he'd be with a startup." Luke frowned, and looked like he was going to say something else, but then didn't. He shook his head. "Anyway. Take that all with a grain of salt."

"Thanks - that was helpful," said Rey.

They worked in silence for a while, while Rey weighed some motors and made calculations.

She had brought leftover lentil soup for lunch. It had been her turn to cook for her apartment mates last night. She heated it up in the student lounge microwave, and pulled up the picture she had taken of Ben's business card on her phone. The feeling of vague unease was still there when she thought of him. She could text him about the place and time they were meeting next. That was it. She could see if he was okay.

 _This is Rey,_ she texted. _I had a thought about where we could meet up for coffee on Thursday._

She looked at her phone, already having second thoughts. But half a minute later, a response appeared.

_**Hello! Where do you recommend?** _

_I'm thinking Area Four_ , she responded. _It's fairly close to Lab Central, and I like their outdoor tables._

 _ **Sounds good!**_ came his response.

There was a pause. She didn't want this conversation to be over yet. _So, what are you up to today?_

_**Working on my dissertation. While cat-sitting.** _

She waited for him to explain further. He didn't. Fine, she'd bite. _Whose cat?_

_**Armitage's.** _

She had barely interacted with the man, but she couldn't imagine cat hair on his fastidious outfit. _Part of your work for Octolynk?_

_**Hah. No. I just like his cat, and a change of scenery is always good. Want to see a pic?** _

_Sure._

He sent over a picture of a ginger tabby cat with a somewhat disgruntled expression, lying on a minimalist grey and black woven rug. _**Her name is Millicent.**_

_She's cute. Let me guess, people always say that she and Armitage look alike._

_**They do. Don't say it to him though, unless you want to annoy him.** _

_Good to know, I guess,_ she texted.

_**What are you up to?** _

_In your uncle's lab. Helping with research._ She spooned up the last of her soup.

_**That's cool.** _

There was a pause. _What time is your tour on Thursday?_ Rey asked.

 _ **3pm**_ , he texted. _**I'm planning to get to Cambridge around 10:30 though.**_

_Want to do 11am coffee then?_

_**Sure** _ _._

*

On Thursday, they both converged at Area Four right on time. Early June in Cambridge could still be cloudy and cool, but today the sky was clear and bright blue, and Rey only wanted her light jacket when the wind blew particularly hard. The tables outside the cafe were fairly full of the usual Kendall Square crowd, in blazers and sleek professional dresses, with some MIT tee-shirts sprinkled throughout. Ben fit right in, wearing a black button-down. They found a table right at the edge of the Technology Square green space. Shining steel and glass rose on either side of lush grass, bordered by trees.

"Didn't realize you liked tea, too," Ben said, looking at the drink she had ordered. It was a roasty Taiwanese oolong, almost like a black tea but with a more complex fruity and spicy flavor.

Rey leaned over the cup and sniffed the fragrant steam. "Amy, one of my moms, really likes tea, and got me into it. I've already had plenty of coffee this morning. Plus, the tea here is good."

Ben sipped his cold brew. "You know plenty about my family - I haven't heard much about yours," he said.

"You didn't ask," Rey said.

"Fair, fair," said Ben.

"Amilyn and Mon are my moms," Rey said. "They live in Queens. Mon jokes that they're both part of the nonprofit-industrial complex. Amilyn has been in arts nonprofits and just started as part of the leadership team at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Mon runs a LGBT community center called The Center in Greenwich Village. She's been a community organizer for a long time."

"I bet she has some stories. I bet they both do," said Ben, relaxing back into his chair.

"Oh, they do. Pride this year is going to be huge, and I'm thinking of visiting them then."

"That would be cool," said Ben. "My mom marches in the Boston parade every year. I think she started when she was running for the Senate."

"What's it like, being a Senator's kid? I mean, you don't seem to have bodyguards or anything."

Ben laughed sharply and leaned forward. "No, no bodyguards. My mom was elected when I was in undergrad. She did some policy work before that, but when I was living at home she was mostly working as a lawyer, then a law professor."

"Do you ever have to worry about the press?" asked Rey, involuntarily lowering her voice and glancing around.

"No, not really. I don't think we're going to have paparazzi or reporters jumping out of bushes because I'm here," he said with a little laugh. "I mean, I probably shouldn't do anything scandalous, I guess." He shrugged, and took out his laptop. "So, you wanted to see our pitch deck," Ben said, his tone becoming more serious . "Whatever you decide, it would certainly be helpful to get your opinion on it."

“Sure,” said Rey. She scooted her chair around the table so she could look over Ben's shoulder as he loaded the slides. “Well to start with, I would say that 40 slides are way too many.”

“Most of them are the appendix,” said Ben. "They're just there if we need to answer specific questions."

“Sure, but what's your audience for this pitch deck. Investors? A pitch competition? Right now, you're pitching to a potential employee. It's too many for all of those audiences.”

“You're not wrong,” said Ben. “See, I told you we needed your critique.” The corner of his mouth quirked up a bit. Rey moved the drinks aside, and Ben shifted the laptop so she could see it. He almost knocked over her tea, and when she caught it, her hand brushed against his.

The sound went out of the world again. This time, she could see his eye twitch, and his lips tighten. She moved the mug out of the way, breaking contact, and the world rushed back in. “-Raised a $45 million Series D round,” someone was saying at the table next to theirs.

He pulled up the title slide like nothing had happened.

“Are we... going to talk about that? What just happened.” She was afraid he would deny it, or say she was crazy.

“Yeah, we can. But not here, maybe,” he said quietly.

Rey looked around at the crowd at Area Four, wondering how many of them were biotech venture capitalists. Statistically, probably four. “Sure. Okay. So, your slides...”

Well before meeting Ben, she had thought about joining a startup. It could be more interesting than just straight up getting hired by Medtronic or Stryker – if the startup could pay her, that was. She had seen her fair share of pitch decks. Ben's was... not the worst. It was a bit vague and overblown, and the financial projections seemed to have very little relationship with reality. That was a norm for most of them. If it didn't come from her grandfather, if she didn't still remember the creeping _wrongness_ she had felt in his house, she might have been very interested.

“It's too vague,” she said when he was done. “And I feel like you're appealing to pity with the 'day in the life of your prospective user' bit. Don't do that. And like I said, you have too many slides for how early stage this is.”

“Early stage with lots of funding.”

"Sure, but you still have to show you're credible, regardless of how much funding you've gotten so far. I mean Theranos had lots of funding, but that doesn't mean that they had a product. I've heard from some people working on devices that investors are more skittish now." Theranos' well-hyped blood testing technology had proven to be a fraud, but not before it had attracted significant money, a well-connected board, and several corporate partnerships.

“I've heard that too, although I think people are the most suspicious of diagnostics. Still, you're right. We need fewer slides, and more information.”

“At least about whatever stage of research you're at, and the overall plan for clinical trials.”

“Yeah, I can mention that,” he said. His eye was twitching again, and he swallowed a couple of times.

Ben finished his coffee, and Rey got some more hot water to rebrew her tea. “So... walk through campus? Maybe to the river? We're not too far from Harvard Bridge here,” she said.

“Sure. I haven't spent much time in Cambridge, so it'll probably be new to me.”

“Seems like that may be changing," said Rey.

"Oh, definitely," said Ben. "Andrew and Armitage want to move quickly with getting the office space. My last tour is today, and they'll probably come to a decision and be working from the new space soon."

“Will you be working from here too?” asked Rey, surprised at how much she hoped the answer would be yes. She caught herself holding her breath and exhaled.

"When I'm working for Octolynk, yes. All of our commercialization research will be moving to Cambridge. I'll be in Arkham for dissertation work, though.”

They walked by the iconic Great Dome on campus, with its serene white pillars rising over wide green lawns. They passed the Civil and Environmental Engineering building, a modernist concrete and glass rectangle, and Maseeh Hall, a dorm that looked like a red brick castle, complete with battlements. Finally they crossed a wide street and stopped on the sidewalk that ran along the Charles River. Rey leaned on the green metal railing and looked at the nearby low span of the Harvard Bridge, reaching across the wide river to Boston's skyscrapers. She admired the blue river under the blue sky and tried to figure out to how ask what she wanted to ask.

“So... this is going to sound really weird,” she began, her stomach tensing up.

“Try me,” said Ben.

She looked up at him. His face was softer and less mask-like, his eyes intense. It seemed he was listening carefully.

“Okay. When I met you in Arkham, when we shook hands, everything went silent, except for your voice. It happened again when my hand brushed against yours in Area Four. When the contact stopped, the sound came back.” She sighed and shook her head. “Look, I know how this sounds...”

“It doesn't sound strange. I experienced it too,” said Ben. He paused. “Do you ever... know things you shouldn't be able to know?”

“Yeah,” said Rey. “Sometimes I know how to fix things by just touching them. I... feel things from places, too. I have for as long as I can remember.”

“What do you sense from me?” Ben asked.

She closed her eyes, breathed, and reached out. She felt MIT's campus at her back, accelerating into Kendall Square in the distance. She felt the Charles River steady in its path to the canal, and the sea. She reached for him with her thoughts, and something _shivered_ over her. Was this whole thing just his super odd way of flirting?

“It's not,” he said. “I'm not flirting.”

Her eyes flew open and she looked over at him. "What, how?" Maybe he had just guessed?

“I took my shields down. You must have too, or were just thinking really loudly.”

“You're a _telepath_?”

“Closer to an empath, most of the time. I usually pick up feelings, not words, and I really try not to eavesdrop,” he said. Something shivered again, and his presence was back to how it had been earlier. More closed off, she realized. "It's... been sharper lately. Stronger," he added.

She stared at him. "Since when?" She could guess what he was going to say.

He stepped closer to her. "Since I met you, in Arkham."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed this, please leave a comment. Comments are great! Also, as always, if there's something I should tag let me know.
> 
> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/midwintersprin1)!
> 
> This fic owes a lot to conversations with various colleagues about the Kendall Square startup ecosystem. They have no idea they inspired this. Also, thanks to one of my friends for answering some questions about equity.
> 
> I keep meaning to link to corseque's meta on [Ben's facial expressions](https://corseque.tumblr.com/post/189935195282). It's influenced every Reylo fic I've written, including this one.
> 
> Rey is drinking Mem Tea's [Fern Stream Amber Oolong](https://www.memteaimports.com/whole-leaf-tea/fern-stream-amber-pinglin-taiwan-oolong-tea) at [Area Four](https://www.areafour.com/). While they did have Mem Tea varieties there when I visited a few years ago, I don't think they actually serve that particular one. It is delicious!
> 
> [Lab Central](https://labcentral.org/). Ben is also visiting [CIC Cambridge](https://cic.com/cambridge).
> 
> Some details of Leia's political career are inspired by Elizabeth Warren.
> 
> [The Center's Archive](https://gaycenter.org/archives/)
> 
> [An introduction to Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos.](https://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-founder-ceo-elizabeth-holmes-life-story-bio-2018-4)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He placed his hand near hers on the green railing. There was something almost pleading in his eyes, like they were saying:_ See me. Know me. _She took a breath and placed her hand on his. She felt his shields slide aside as silence engulfed them again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to [TristenCrone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TristenCrone) for betaing this chapter and to [QueenofCarrotFlowers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfCarrotFlowers) for her comments!
> 
> After brainstorming and reworking a bit of my planned plot for this fic, I've added a couple of new tags: **coworker romance** and **problems with financial aid.** Rey and Ben will be on an equal level professionally throughout the fic.

Rey exhaled, hard.

Ben must have noticed. "You feel it too?"

She nodded. "What I do... psychometry, I guess,and claircognizance. It's gotten stronger since I met you, too." She remembered something from the evening at Palpatine's house. "You were the one who did the calligraphy on the envelope. On Palpatine's letter."

“Yes, that was me. How did you know?”

“I saw it when I shook your hand. Does he usually have you address his correspondence?”

“No,” said Ben, almost smiling. “I like calligraphy though, and I offered to do it, since he was bothering to send you a letter. The whole thing seemed a bit...”

“Archaic?” asked Rey, hoping she wouldn't offend him.

“Sure. He can be a bit... over the top sometimes.”

Rey nodded, trying to be diplomatic. "I can see that." She remembered she was still holding the to-go cup with her rebrewed tea in it. 

She finished it and threw it in a nearby trash can, then went back to looking half at the river, half at Ben. "So. If you still want me to try and read you, I can do that. I think... It's like I sense things at different resolutions. I can get things from places just from being in them, but small things, like machines, or people, I seem to need to touch. I could sense your surroundings last time, but not you."

"Okay," said Ben, easily. 

He placed his hand near hers on the green railing. There was something almost pleading in his eyes, like they were saying: _See me. Know me._ She took a breath and placed her hand on his. She felt his shields slide aside as silence engulfed them again.

She sensed intense loneliness. Heard the sound of a pen scratching, and the sense of peace it brought. Then tentacles flashed across her inner vision, red against black water. They were replaced by shiny, polished people, shiny polished places, rooms of fake smiles... She looked up, from a child's height, at a woman with braided brown hair in an elegant suit and a man in a rumpled fleece vest with a broad grin on his face. Then wooden paneling, wrought iron door handles, red brick covered in ivy, and far in the distance the musty scent of water, the sound of water, a dark river at the edge of his consciousness, its presence clinging to him...

She let go of his hand. At some point she had closed her eyes and she opened them again as sound rushed back, almost surprised to see the bright sunshine and the boats docked at the nearby Sailing Pavilion. She remembered what he said about shields and tried to imagine a bubble around her, with clear edges, separating out what was _hers._ It was something she half-remembered from a book she hadn't taken seriously at the time.

His eyes were on her. "What did you see?" he asked, almost whispering.

She wondered how much he had intended to show her. This conversation had gone so far beyond startup employment—but then again, wasn't that why she was interested?

"I saw, and heard, a river. Narrow, but dark and deep and fast moving. I dreamt of it too, a few days ago," she said, remembering.

"That sounds like the Miskatonic. It runs through Arkham."

Rey frowned. "I don't remember seeing it."

“It's a bit east of Palpatine's house. You probably wouldn't see it if you drove from Cambridge and just visited campus."

Rey nodded. "When I dreamt of it I saw you, too. Are you... okay?"

Ben laughed sharply and bitterly. "My family has plenty of money, I'm in grad school at one of the best schools in the US, my advisor is top in his field and his startup continues to raise an impressive amount of money. I'm fine."

"Ben, none of those things are about _you."_ She regretted it pushing him as soon as she said it, but she still remembered how much _loneliness_ she had sensed from him.

He looked down, pulled his hand away from hers, and didn't say anything else.

"I'm sorry," said Rey. "It's none of my business.'

"It's not your fault," he sighed. "I asked what you could sense from me." 

He looked out at the Charles. 

"That's what you saw, the Miskatonic?"

"I also... I saw you doing calligraphy. I think I saw your parents too, and then Miskatonic's campus."

He looked back at her and ran his fingers through his hair quickly. "That sounds about right."

There was a pause. She didn't want to see his mask go up again. "Look, since you're here, do you want to see something silly that's very MIT?" asked Rey.

"Sure," Ben said, with a half-smile and a little shrug. "Might as well."

"It's on this bridge," Rey said. 

They walked toward it, then turned on to the bridge's pedestrian walkway. Rey pointed out a plaque, feeling a bit awkward but trying to act cheerful and normal. There would be time later to question why she cared so much. 

"This bridge's length is measured in 'smoots', after a fraternity prank involving someone named Oliver Smoot measuring the bridge in units of his height. He later went on to lead two different standards organizations. The markings get repainted every year. Want to walk across?"

Ben checked his phone. "Sure - I have time."

As they walked, they could see the painted markings every 10 smoots. The sunlight sparkled off the river under the bright blue sky. It was a cheerful scene, and the lingering weirdness she had sensed from Ben seemed to dissipate a bit.

Both smoot 69 and 70 were marked off, and Ben lay down with his feet on one marking and his entire head past the other. He grinned - the first time Rey had seen him smile that widely. "If the measuring unit was an organa-solo, they would have needed fewer of them!" he said.

Rey laughed. "I mean, metrology is a fine field to consider going into, even if there isn't an official kilogram anymore."

"What, did someone steal it?" He sat up again with another grin, and Rey held out her arm if he needed help up. He grasped her forearm through her light jacket. Their bare skin didn't touch, and she was pretty sure that wasn't a coincidence.

Rey laughed. "It's been officially redefined based on Planck's constant. I'm pretty sure the platinum-iridium Prototype Kilogram is still in a basement in France somewhere."

"Still sounds like a heist movie waiting to happen," he said.

"I would pay good money to watch a metrology heist movie," said Rey, putting her hands in her pockets and slowly walking next to Ben. "The explosions would be so precise."

The rest of their walk to Boston and back on the bridge was quiet, but not in a bad way. 

"Let me know either way about Octolynk," Ben said, as he headed off to send some emails before his tour. "Think on it for a few days. And either way - I wouldn't mind seeing you again."

"Me neither!" said Rey after a surprised moment, but he had already turned and walked away.

*

Rey had a letter from MIT Student Financial Services waiting for her when she got back to the apartment. Dread twisted in her stomach. She tried to tell herself it could be something good or innocuous.

It wasn't. Her fellowship "needed to be recalculated for the upcoming fiscal year", and then there were several more wordy paragraphs after that. Her tuition was covered, but the end result was that she was going to have less than she needed for living expenses, and she and her apartment mates didn't live extravagantly to begin with.

She stared at the paper. There had to be some sort of mistake. Who did this, especially considering leases on student apartments began in May, and the fiscal year started in July? She needed to get this fixed, and if she couldn't, she would need to find another source of income.

Something tickled at the back of her mind - a horrible intuition. Holding the letter, she saw a dark river, like what she had seen in her dream and Ben's mind. Dark water, clinging and tainting...

 _It couldn't be._ Miskatonic University was prestigious, with rich and influential trustees and alumni, but there was no way that influence could reach this far. 

_No way._ Except her world was already stranger than it had been last month. She and a senator's kid had somehow amplified each other's psychic abilities, and then talked about it. She remembered the strange feeling of the campus, the sound of recorded chanting in Palpatine's dining room, and her grandfather's amber eyes.

She wanted to give herself another day to think about it, but until the letter, she had been ready to say no to the Octolynk offer. It had arrived at the perfect time, or the worst time, depending on how she looked at it.

She took a deep breath. First things first. She needed more information, before she started jumping to conclusions. Maybe she wasn't the only one who had gotten a letter like this. She could talk to Financial Services tomorrow, and talk to her apartment mates tonight.

Finn was helping Poe troubleshoot a drone when she walked into the dining room. There was the beep of a continuity check on a circuit, and then Finn looked up from the multimeter. "Hi, Rey."

"Hi, you two. Did either of you get a letter from Financial Services recently?"

"Ooh, no," said Poe. "Judging from your face, I'm guessing it didn't say you were getting a raise and a year's supply of coffee."

Rey smiled wryly. "No, not at all." She saw that Rose had come out of her room.

"What's up?" asked Rose.

Rey held up the letter. "I'm getting less money from my fellowship than I was expecting. I was just trying to figure out if I was the only one."

"No, I haven't gotten anything like that." Rose made a face. "You seem to be the only one of us who gets mail, and you've gotten some ominous letters lately. Are you sure you haven't fallen into a gothic novel recently?"

 _No, I'm not sure,_ thought Rey. Instead, she half smiled. "It sure has been strange for the last month or so."

"Look," said Finn. "If you need to adjust your share of rent for the next few months, we should be fine..."

"No, I don't want any of you to have to pay more. I'm going to see if there's been a mistake. And if not, well... There's at least one startup that wants to recruit me. They're a bit odd, but they can pay."

*

An email, phone call, and finally visit to Financial Services turned up nothing. The details were still vague, but the conclusion was clear: her fellowship had been reduced, for reasons that couldn't quite be explained satisfactorily but were apparently unchangeable. Amilyn and Mon offered to loan her money, but she didn't want to take them up on it. They had had some lean times themselves, and she didn't want to burden them even if things were a lot better now.

They didn't want her to rush into the startup job, or feel stuck, and she wanted to feel the same. At least she would go in with her eyes open. Now she needed more information, so she could negotiate.

She was able to chat with one of the staff at the Martin Trust Center about equity negotiations and becoming a startup employee. She had gone to several of the Center's entrepreneurship events after her Product Development class last year had piqued her interest. So far, it had come in handy for her conversations with Ben, and hopefully, it would now help her get what she needed from Palpatine or Snoke.

After the meeting, and seeing the students working in the Center's prototyping space, she felt some of her past excitement about startups returning, even though she still resented the circumstances. Amilyn, Mon, and the Center staff member had all agreed that working for Octolynk would be amazing on her resume. Luke had already said he was okay with her working for the startup as well as working for him.

Rey walked past plain red brick buildings and parking lots until she found the green lawn circle of McDermott Court, with the black metal wings of an Alexander Calder sculpture rising in front of it. She wanted to make this phone call standing in the bright sunlight, with her feet on the MIT campus. She glanced over at the white dome on top of the concrete tower of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences as she pulled up Ben's number. Octolynk needed her. She had something to offer. She tried to keep that at the forefront of her mind when he answered.

"Hi, Ben," she said. "Is the position at Octolynk still open?"

"Oh, absolutely," he said.

"Good," she said. "I'd like to accept it." 

*

Palpatine wasn't available to meet with her for a couple of days, so Rey had some time to get more information. Because her apartment-mates were all busy, Rey took the ferry over to Salem by herself. The weather all week had been sunny and gradually warming up, and Rey stood on the ferry's deck to enjoy it. She arrived in Salem windblown and feeling more refreshed than she had in awhile.

The same man she had seen before was behind the counter at Nu Aeon. The store didn't seem terribly busy, so she was hoping he'd have some time to talk to her.

"Excuse me," she said. "Do you have some time to chat about this area of Massachusetts?"

He had been putting price tags on tins of incense. "Sure," he said. and finished labeling the last one. "What do you want to know?"

"My friend and I visited here last month, on our way to Arkham. You probably don't remember, but when we mentioned that we were going there, you gave us each black tourmaline. You said it was a 'gift with purchase', but something about how you said it made me think there was something odd about Arkham." She looked down. It sounded a bit silly coming out of her mouth.

"I do remember," he said. "We do periodically give out black tourmalines with purchases - most people like shiny rocks, and most people could also use some protection. And as for Arkham: that whole area really is odd." He gestured at the shelves of local history and folklore books near the register. "All places have their stories of course, but the Miskatonic Valley region seems to have more than most. And stranger ones, too."

"What do you mean?" She enjoyed ghost tours when she had the chance to do them, and she had certainly heard some odd stories. She didn't always take them as literally true, but appreciated them as a way to understand a place and the people who lived there.

"Well, there was that meteorite fall a few years ago, further up the Valley from Arkham. Some people got very sick, and there are still areas where nothing grows."

"I had heard about that, but I wasn't sure it was real," said Rey.

"Oh, it was. Researchers from Miskatonic University went to investigate, and some peer-reviewed papers got published. The strangeness goes back a lot further in time too. There's Innsmouth, whose residents got surprisingly wealthy from fishing. Someone did an analysis of the number of fishing accidents in Innsmouth and nearby villages at the height of the industry, and there were almost no fatalities in a hundred years. No other location compares."

"How did you find out about this?"

"People expect me to know about the local lore, and I find it really interesting. I thought I'd end up mostly researching Salem, but once I found out about Arkham, I concentrated on that the most."

"Arkham's visitor's bureau should hire you, then. If they have one."

He shrugged. "I'm not sure if I'd exactly persuade people to visit, though. Like I said, it's an odd area. And of course there's Miskatonic University."

Rey raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"They have the largest collection of occult manuscripts in the US, maybe in the world. They've got Babylonian astrological texts, Renaissance alchemical primers, even some fragments of the Greek Magical Papyri. Then there's even stranger things. There's the Necronomicon, for one."

A shiver prickled down Rey's spine, even though she had never heard of it before.

"What's that?"

"An incredibly rare manuscript, allegedly a work about necromancy and dark magic, written in Arabic in Damascus during the eighth century CE. Miskatonic also has a Greek translation, dating to the eleventh century. Allegedly, I should say. It's pretty common for occult manuscripts and secret societies to claim an ancient origin to give themselves legitimacy."

"How did you find out about this?"

He laughed. "It used to have a page on Miskatonic's Special Collections website, along with a number of their other more unusual volumes. The page disappeared, though."

"The Necronomicon and the rest are housed in Special Collections?" asked Rey, remembering Rose's comment that the library, and especially that area, felt strange.

"It is, although good luck getting access. I know several researchers and occultists who have tried with no success."

"Oh, well, it wouldn't do me any good, I don't think. I wouldn't be able to read it."

He smiled a little, then looked serious again. "If you're planning to spend more time in Arkham, just... just be careful. I'm only scratching the surface, here. For one, there've been a number of unexplained disappearances from the area, too."

Rey shivered again. "Well, thank you, seriously. I don't want to take up more of your time. Are there any books about this you would recommend?" Rey was aware that her budget was about to be smaller come July, but she thought it would be polite to at least buy something after he had let her quiz him about Arkham.

He showed her the local history section. "I already have that one," she said, pointing to one of the books she had bought on her last visit. "It was interesting, but it didn't have a lot about Arkham."

He nodded. "This is the one you need, if you're interested." He handed it to her. It was a thick book titled _History and Folklore of the Miskatonic Valley,_ published by Harvard University Press. "It was co-written by a historian and folklorist. It's very dense, very academic, but the strangeness bleeds through even so. The folklorist died fairly soon after it was published, and the historian left academia permanently and now lives somewhere on the west coast."

Rey raised an eyebrow. "That's... ominous. Sure, I'll take it. And thanks for answering my questions."

"Any time! I love talking about all of this."

After she had paid for the book, he reached under the counter and pulled out a purple crystal about the size of her thumb. "Another gift with purchase?" she asked.

He nodded. "Amethyst, that your intuition may be clear. Or, you know, another pretty rock."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on Twitter as [@midwintersprin1](https://twitter.com/midwintersprin1). Please let me know in a DM, on Discord, or by leaving a comment if there's anything I should have tagged.
> 
> [Smoot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot) One smoot is equal to 5 feet, 7 inches.  
> [International Prototype of the Kilogram](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Prototype_of_the_Kilogram)  
> [Metrology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrology)  
> [The Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship](https://entrepreneurship.mit.edu/)  
> [La Grande Voile(Calder Sculpture on McDermott Court)](https://www.google.com/maps/place/La+Grande+Voile,+Alexander+Calder/@42.3597184,-71.0911373,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m8!1m2!3m1!2sLa+Grande+Voile,+Alexander+Calder!3m4!1s0x89e370a9a312b4e9:0x8db5fe58f9610e38!8m2!3d42.3597145!4d-71.0889486) You can see the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences building in the background of the first photo.  
> [Amethyst](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amethyst)
> 
> I couldn't make metrology references in a story without also mentioning [Stoats as Measurement](https://society6.com/product/stoats-as-measurement_print).
> 
> The stories of unusual happenings in the Miskatonic valley are references to "The Color Out of Space" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" by H.P. Lovecraft. The map in the moodboard is his hand-drawn map of [Arkham](http://www.cthulhufiles.com/arkham.htm). 
> 
> The black tourmaline "gift with purchase" and the Nu Aeon employee's approach to stones were inspired by [On The Rocks](http://ontherockschicago.com/) in Chicago.
> 
> Here is an interesting [article](https://news.uchicago.edu/story/uchicago-neuroscientists-expand-possibilities-realistic-prosthetic-limbs) about real-life neuroprosthetics research.

**Author's Note:**

> For a different take on cosmic horror, check out ["Not Without Your Darkness"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26726140). If you enjoyed the maker culture references in this fic, you might also enjoy my [Modern Makerspace AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26227066/chapters/63834136) microfics.


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